Tal vid Riksförbundet Internationella Föreningar För Invandrarkvinnors internationella kvinnokonferens, Stockholm 7 februari 2008
The last 20 years one has experienced an increased escape from extreme poverty. Borderlines in Europe disappear. New countries are included in the Union. Economy is in full swing; unemployment is decreasing especially among the young people and those born abroad. This is only natural since unemployment is highest within these groups.
Alongside this idyll, there are a billion people in the world living on less than a dollar a day. Employers in Sweden have difficulty in finding labour whereas there are children who have never seen their parents go to work.
Young women from neighbouring countries are enticed to come to this country by being promised the moon. Next, they find themselves prisoners in some apartment where they are sold and repeatedly abused. Should we listen carefully, we could hear the humble cries for help at the clinics that treat eating disorders. Should we find the time to look, we could see more and more girls undress in front of the cameras in the hope that someone will look at them with love.
We remember cars being burnt in Paris; we remember the minors in Rosengård. Abandonment and isolation in the exposed areas tend to become permanent.
The living conditions in many of the exposed areas are preposterous, punctuated by high unemployment and overcrowding. Only about half of the pupils in these areas manage to get qualified to senior high school. This can be compared to 90% in the whole country.
Integration is one of the greatest challenges in most European countries. Last autumn, at a conference in Leeds, one could point at a "third-generation-unemployed" neighbourhood. Our problems are not so serious yet. However, we risk getting there unless we initiate a conscious politics that includes people socially and economically.
Irrespective of their birthplace, one cannot find one's purpose in a country that keeps them outside the labour market by means of subsidy. This gives birth to disrespect, frustration and conflicts. One can only respect a land that encourages them to take an active part in their life and supports them in their attempts to succeed.
One might consider that three factors are important to a successful integration of the newcomers: the reception system, the access to the labour market and to education. We have had a distorted national reception system in which a handful of municipalities had to take a great responsibility for our newly arrived, thus creating a breach of solidarity among the municipalities. Significantly, the reorganisation of the system and the shifting of responsibility for the reception to the county level have already given results. More municipalities have got the opportunity for co-operation thus offering access to lodging, education and work. This process needs to be made easier with the help of a compensation system that will encourage better co-operation. The government has appointed a commission that will investigate the reception system in future.
Notably, the best way for introduction is at work. It has been proved that self-supporting can lead to confidence and dignity, to the feeling of belonging to the new country. Long periods of adaptation, in which society provides, seem to be destructive and encourage one to passivity. It is important to combine the study of the Swedish language with occupational training/work practice. The introduction jobs for the newcomers, which enable the employers to get a serious subvention, should get better effect.
Newly coined jobs have been more successful. A third of them has gone to people with a foreign background.
A vital issue regards the education policy that stresses the importance of knowledge and creates a motivation for learning in the suburbs as well. All the Swedes, both natives and newly arrived, have the right to first-rate education for their children, focus being laid on the Swedish language for the children with another mother tongue. We must invest more on helping the pupils with different subjects in their mother tongue. The role of the mother tongue teachers should be redefined. As part of the teaching core, the mother tongue teacher must be aware of the whole education process in the school. Education, accompanied by knowledge is the guarantee that exclusion will not happen.
Significantly, we will fight all forms of discrimination. We continue to believe in the ideas of Martin Luther King, the great fighter for human rights: each individual must be defined in accordance to their accomplishments and not after their ethnical, religious or political affiliation. We are going to continue fighting for this dream. Last week we forwarded a motion about a new law against discrimination, including discrimination based on gender and age. We need a more effective and powerful authority that will facilitate things for the individual who risks to be discriminated. The responsibility to find out the cause of the discrimination should be shifted from the individual to the juridical experts. A single authority, instead of four, can constitute a stronger defence against discrimination.
The question about the content and meaning of the multicultural society has been swept away for years on end. This has resulted in an unconditional acceptance of multiplicity as well as blindness in front of the need for solidarity and shared values. The Government initiated some time ago a debate on a stronger mutual values. My issue is that there is more that unites us than social justice. It is our constitutional law that is based on democracy, openness and human rights. These values are universal but not uncontroversial. These rights are violated every day in our country.
Sweden is considered to be the best country in the world in terms of equal opportunities. We live in a land where women and men have the same right to education, work and sexual and reproductive inclination. Much to be proud of. But let me tell you about the world's most equal country.
In this country, women and men do not have the same pay for the same performance. In the country with the most equal terms in the world, the women get 80% of the parent allowance. In the country with the most equal opportunities in the world, the women may risk to get worse ward than men do. At the same time, women's free enterprise equals a third of men's. Last year there were reported 25,412 cases of abuse and 4,189 rapes.
According to the Council against Delinquency, BRÅ, this dark picture is alarming. BRÅ estimates that violent deeds reported to the police constitute 20-25% of the actual ones. Nearly half of the women in this country, 46%, have been exposed to violence. Almost every third woman before she is 15 has the same fate. From an international perspective, every third woman in the world has been exposed to violence or sexual assault.
Furthermore, an issue on democracy and human rights is the right not to be exposed to gender related violence. One of the Government's equality goals is that men's violence against women should come to an end. Women and men, girls and boys should have the same right to body integrity. This demand includes all forms of violence and menace.
The men's violence against women is a priority for the Government. As for me, personally, it is the most acute equality issue and I have given it priority in the plan of action presented during my first year as Minister for Integration and Gender Equality.
Women can also carry on violence against women in one-gender relationships. Violence means power; it is usually practised by men and affects women. If we choose to close our eyes to the sequence of events, we risk not seeing the honour-based violence and violence in one-gender relationships. That is why we have included these issues in our plan of action. The co-operation with other departments has been extended and the costs shared.
We, women and men, who lead a decent life and are not exposed to violence, must use all the tools of democracy in order to carry on the fight against woman- related violence. We must see to it that these problems be taken seriously at all social levels and that we have a clear legislation that will enable us to act strongly against these acts. As a result, there are shelters in the whole country for women who need to hide.
Here follow some decisions:
- Operating shelters for women have been replenished with 20 million crowns. It is important to me that both the municipalities and voluntary forces operate shelters and the municipalities will pay the bill.
- The social assistance law will be made more stringent and the Social Assistance Committee will be in duty bound to support the crime victims.
- We will initiate more impartial regulations as regards the partition of the joint property of husband and wife. The law, which will come into force 1 July 2008, stipulates that compensation for individual injury and infringement from the ex husband will be set aside in case of the partition of property.
- We consider that the initiation of a long-term research program is very important in order to get better knowledge about the mechanisms of violence.
We live in the country with the most equal opportunities. In this country there are girls who are not allowed to choose their spouse, when to get married and, on the whole, whether they want to get married. In the country with the most equal opportunities there are girls who are exposed to genital mutilation and whose virginity is thoroughly checked. In this country, girls are murdered in the name of honour.
There are voices, few but strong, that allege that honour based violence is equal to the traditional men's violence against women. I maintain this is naive, even racist. It is our duty to fight traditions that can lead to serious violations of the individual's rights and freedom. It is important that injustice should not be committed in the name of honour. It is also essential that those in need should get support and protection so that they can live in freedom and security.
The Government allocates 40 millions in the fight against the oppression of the honour based violence. The money will be used to build women shelters, which will get funding for competence development. We are also working for a law change that will enable court laws to start an investigation about a young person without informing the parents.
There will be initiated a survey of the pre-arranged marriages. What will it look like? How large will the measure of the voluntary basis be? Must one pay back the dowry in case of a divorce? There are many questions to answer.
How we experience the terms of employment is consistent with how we experience our whole situation in life and whether we are capable to put together the everyday puzzle. Both women and men should be able to combine family life with work. The initiation of an equality bonus is going to raise the financial possibilities of the family to share the maternal and paternal leave. This can improve the circumstances for equality both at home and at work.
The government has made it easier for the parents to combine work with a functioning family life by offering them the possibility to buy cheaper domestic help. Research has shown that families with small children are the first to buy this service in order to get temporary help at home.
We have taken measures that stimulate to employment and to an extended working time. These measures stimulate employers to hire people and parents to take out larger parts of the parental insurance. These measures facilitate the daily routine for the parents and constitute a solid basis for greater economic equality between women and men.
To be employed should not be the only available form of work or of supporting oneself. Sweden needs more prosperous companies. Sweden needs more women who start their own business and see their business grow. It is generally agreed that women enterprise is going to change the distorted property development that is set on the fact that few women own and drive a business today.
The government invests 100 million crowns to improve the conditions for women to start their own business. A way to increase individual initiative and business is to let the women dominated branches enter into competition.
One of the most controversial equality questions is about the difference in salary between women and men. The Government has made it an important issue to see this difference decrease. Legal measures against this unexplained difference in the salary will be taken until latest in 2010. At the same time, the authorities' work to get more women in leading positions is to be intensified.
I will finish with some lines from Karin Boyes' famous poem "Certainly it is painful when buds burst". The poem has always been special for me, as it was the first poem I understood in Swedish after my arrival in Sweden as a teenager.
"Certainly it is painful when buds burst, painful for what is growing and what is closing."
The message in the first part of the poem is that change takes time, change is uncertain, change is painful. Painful for what is growing and painful for what is closing. Painful for those who represent the new, developing, multicultural Sweden. Painful for those who are forced to isolation and passivity, for those who, in spite of the promise of democracy and free choice, are denied the right to empowerment.
It is painful for those who oppose and deny change, those who have blamed the newcomers for the failure of the integration policy.
"At that time, when it is worst and nobody helps, the buds of the trees burst as if rejoicing. At that time, when no fear holds any longer,
Falling in a sparkle, the branches' drops forget they were frightened by the new, forget they were distressed about the journey
Feel for a second the feeling of security, relax in that confidence that shaped the world."
My friends, these lines contain my personal and my department's main goal: to release the individual's inner power. To remove the obstacles that obstruct the individual's free choice and human rights. To refuse to permit that the fear of change should dominate, oppress and deny the human rights.
Using my authority as a weapon against isolation, I will lead an indefatigable fight. Change does not need to be painful but some changes are. Changes take time, changes are uncertain and can be painful sometimes. One thing is clear though; it is time for a change.
Thank you for the word and thank you to RIFFI that has invited me here.